As reported last week by the Anchorage Daily News, a twelve-mile long blob of organic material was discovered floating in the icy Arctic waters off the north coast of Alaska. What was initially thought to be an oil slick is in fact some unknown biological substance or marine organism, thick and gooey and emitting a strong smell…

The Consumerist website offers articles related to “consumer culture”, and last week the site featured a selection of amusing ironic adverts from bygone eras. Top 10 Ironic Ads From History was compiled by Carrie McLaren and Jason Torchinsky, who are co-editors of Ad Nauseum: A Survivor’s Guide to American Consumer Culture…

In a new book entitled The End of Overeating, David Kessler – former head of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) – suggests that food manufacturers and their scientists devise combinations of sugar, fat and salt to make their products irresistible. Kessler believes that the blame for the rampant increase of obesity and those with weight problems cannot be squared solely at the consumer…

If you’ve ever been disconnected from a phone call made to India, perhaps the photos below will illustrate why. Then again, it’s a wonder those pesky Indian telemarketers can actually get a connection to your home thousands of miles away…

Wiltshire in England has long been home to some of the most amazing crop circle configurations ever seen. One way of thinking associates the formation of crop circles to electromagnetic energy – that being, waves of energy moving through the globe or along the Earth’s magnetic field, leaving patterns of its waveform on the planet’s surface…

Whilst I don’t usually watch Fox News or put much stock in what its “journalists” have to say, an interesting story did appear on Fox8 regarding the memories and nightmares of a young boy named James Leininger. The 11-year-old had held a deep fascination with World War 2 aircraft since he was very young, seeming to show an intimate knowledge of certain planes. When he began to have nightmares and put disturbing wartime images on paper, his parents started to ask questions…

On June 30 1908, in a remote region of Siberia near the Podkamennaya Tunguska River, something exploded above the Earth levelling an estimated 80 million trees in a 2,000-kilometre radius. Over a hundred years has passed since the explosion, and a definitive answer as to what constituted the event has been elusive…

About a year ago, the volcano erupted for the first time in what was believed to be around 9,000 years. Evacuations of the neighbouring town of Chaiten have since been a regular occurrence as the volcano proceeds through its new eruptive phase…

Hitching a ride into orbit with the space shuttle Discovery in April 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope has taken incredibly clear and detailed images for almost twenty years. After some initial forestalling of the launch and eventual problems with one its mirrors, the Telescope has proven to be an invaluable aid for astronomers…